Ask HN: Are you a single founder ?
A small survey, please answer as many you want,
1) How long have you been working on your idea ? 2) Were you accepted in YC ? 3) Have you raised money from the VC ? 4) URL to your demo/company.
1) How long have you been working on your idea ? 2) Were you accepted in YC ? 3) Have you raised money from the VC ? 4) URL to your demo/company.
119 comments
[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 190 ms ] thread2) No, but the fact that I couldn't relocate to the bay area was a factor in this.
3) No. I've been approached by a few angels, but (apart from one early attempt which didn't work) I've avoided going down that route in favour of bootstrapping.
4) http://www.tarsnap.com/
1) about a year
2) never considered YC (and I'm sure the feeling is mutual)
3) no
4) http://pinboard.in
2) I have not applied to YC, and do not have plans to do so in the immediate future. (Never say never.) Nothing personal: I love what YC does, but to make the deal mutually beneficial, I'd have to take outside investment in my business, swing for the fences, and achieve an exit in the next few years. These do not match my personal vision for the next few years of my life.
3) My feelings on outside investment: I have had a relationship before where somebody could call me and berate me for the lack of progress in my projects. He was my boss. At least he had the decency to pay me money every month. I do not fancy having a relationship in which someone can call me up to berate me for my lack of progress and then say, at the end of the call, "Don't forget, we want you to pay us lots of money!"
4) http://www.bingocardcreator.com and more projects early in the pipeline
So I guess if there's a fair point in it, it's to go after some niche that has an upper bound to its profitability as a defense against large competitors. In the US, at least, though, chain restaurants make the 'little restaurant' example once again a bit suspect because they end up competing in a niche that can, to some degree, be filled by a large corporation.
I think it's a flawed analogy, and that rather than trying to make it work, it would simply make more sense to discuss the economic factors and business decisions that make something like patio11's company successful.
I guess that's the idea with mass-market software. the marginal cost being nearly zero means that the chance of hitting a few out of the park justifies a whole bunch of expensive flops.
Yep. If you're interested in the economics of our field, I can't help but recommending 'Information Rules' ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/087584863X?tag=dedasys-20 ). One of the co-authors is now the chief economist at Google.
But my point was that I think the advantage that the large corporation has is not as big as people seem to think it is. It's a lot more expensive for them to swing the bat than for you to do so, and you don't have to do as well. I think the only large advantage that large corporations still have in this arena is advertising, and of course in software like modern games that is too big for one person to complete in a reasonable period of time.
2) Applied last minute - No
3) no - going the bootstrap route investing 15k of my own money.
4) demo currently offline -will be up later.
2) No, I didn't apply
3) It wouldn't be appropriate at this time.
4) I'll make a note to add a link sometime in the future.
2) No. Never applied.
3) No. Bootstrapped.
4) http://feedity.com
Feedity is a profitable startup. I'm currently working on a new project and hoping to go full-time sometime this year.
2) Never applied
3) No. Bootstrapped, launched running a single crappy tower server in colo (AMD XP 2100 with a gig of RAM). Started part time, on the side from consulting work. I was offered a pretty meager sum ($20k) in my earliest days, but I was already profitable, and turned it down.
4) http://www.dkpsystem.com
I've been profitable since the beginning, and went full-time January '07. Business has been much slower lately, but I'm working to adapt.
2)No, never applied</br>
3)No, I've avoid the route in favor of bootstrapping</br>
4)http://www.mcsquare.me</br>;
I'm curious, did you build/design this yourself and what did you build it on?
Uses FlourishLib (http://flourishlib.com/) as programming framework, jQuery for front-end magic and iconfinder.net for the cute icons all around.
BTW, This particular app has been in development for last 5 months. Since Jan 2009, I was prototyping few different things (see http://www.wingify.com/labs.php) and finally built Visual Website Optimizer.
2) Yes.
3) Not yet, but planning to.
4) Can't say quiet yet :) Launching this week! Currently working on the boring parts of the site like FAQ, Terms, Privacy, About, etc... the rest is pretty much ready to go!
2) didn't apply
3) bootstrapped
4) http://www.bulldogbyte.com
2) Applied to YC10S, rejected
3) No, can self-fund
4) http://mercedhill.com, the product is in alpha and a newer version will be released soon.
2) Never applied (not from USA)
3) Never raised any kind of money
4) http://www.kangasbros.fi
2) didn't apply YC, but graduated from founder institute
3) bootstrapped, maybe later planning to raise money
4) www.lellan.com
2) Never applied; would love to do it, but it’s just not right for me right now.
3) No (and I have no intention to).
4) https://ironmoney.com/
2) Didn't try... I'd have tried for this round, but I didn't want to start any new work until I was completely clear of the previous gig. Lack of co-founders made it a real impossibility (partly inspiring me to write the co-founder finder).
3) I'm going to bootstrap, at least for the short term. Any course of action that leaves me in a position where I'm not substantially the master of my own destiny goes against the whole reason I'm pursuing this startup stuff.
4) http://localhost:8000/ and http://localhost:8001/ at the moment ;)
2) Never applied to YC but attended Startup School in 2006
3) Raised two rounds from VC
4) http://www.socialcast.com
2) Never applied
3) No, bootstrapped
4) http://mographstock.com